Bride is losing weight

Bride is losing weight

Reflecting in the mirror
I remember this shape, this softness
Familiar in its returning
Always returning to the softness
After striving to be hard

Wedding dresses lie about their size
And so the shame began or continued
Because my size 12 body pushed
Ever so slightly on a size 18 wedding dress
And nervously I spoke of diets and plans
To the prissy woman with the measuring tape in her hand
As she wrote the words that come back to me so often
When I’m noticing the softness in the mirror

Bride is losing weight.

And when I look now at the pictures of me in that dress
Dancing in sunglasses to Old time rock and roll
I see a beautiful woman who didn’t understand
That she was walking head-first
Into a life where she would never measure up